Harrisburg roundabout, Camp Hill speed reduction included in safety upgrade plan

Routes 15 and 581 Interchange

This view looking south shows the Route 581 and Route 15 interchange in Camp Hill, Cumberland County. This photo was taken October 23, 2015.

Speed reductions, lane closures and the construction of at least one roundabout were among the numerous suggestions to come out of a study that aims to improve safety along a main corridor into Harrisburg from the West Shore.

That is according to Gene M. Chabak, senior project manager with Larson Design Group, which has been hired to oversee the Camp Hill to Capital Corridor Safety Study.

The study, he said, is being conducted with the hope of making area roads safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. It is now nearing the final stages, and Chabak appeared Friday before the Harrisburg Area Transportation Study board to give a short, preliminary report.

“I’m trying to culminate about nine months of hard work and effort into a fairly brief presentation,” he said, addressing those in attendance and promising a more detailed written report in the weeks to come.

The corridor, Chabak said, begins at the routes 15 and 581 interchange in the Camp Hill area. It then follows Route 15 past Holy Spirit Hospital before crossing the Harvey Taylor Bridge and heading into Harrisburg.

In the city, the corridor continues, moving from North Seventh Street to State Street and out toward the Penbrook area.

The entire corridor, Chabak said, is under 7 miles.

Along that path, motorists pass through four local municipalities — Camp Hill Borough, East Pennsboro Township, Womleysburg Borough and the City of Harrisburg. However, the majority of the corridor falls within Camp Hill and Harrisburg, Chabak said.

“We had some challenges because the corridor is made up of different types of characteristics,” he said, explaining that planners walked the entire path, which travels along bridges, city streets, and commercial and residential areas, during the study process.

That was in addition to looking at pedestrian and vehicle traffic volumes and safety statistics, including crash numbers, Chabak said. The intersection of Front and Forster streets in the city was described by Chabak as one of the identified “high-crash” locations.

“Our first step was looking at crashes. Where do we have safety issues?” he said. “This was a data driven approach.”

On Friday, Chabak said the study was largely spearheaded by the Cumberland Boulevard Improvement Task Force, a group formed by concerned Camp Hill residents in the wake of the death of their friend Diana Davidson.

Davidson, a Camp Hill resident, was killed when she and her two dogs were struck by a drunk driver while walking across Cumberland Boulevard, which is also known as Route 11/15.

“Our mission was to create awareness of pedestrian transportation safety issues and to help improve overall pedestrian safety," reads a mission statement provided by one of the group’s leaders, Brett Miller.

Miller said her group hopes to highlight safety issues along Route 15 in Camp Hill, “with the goal of reducing pedestrian fatalities to zero.”

Concerns about pedestrian safety have been exacerbated, Miller said, due to plans by developers in Camp Hill to construct a Chick-fil-A restaurant at the corner of 32nd and Chestnut streets and to redevelop a former Veterans Affairs medical building north of the Sunoco Gas station at the corner of 32nd and Market street.

Both, she said, will attract additional vehicle traffic to areas already busy with motorists.

By combining their gathered data with the corridor’s geographic makeup and input from municipal leaders and transportation experts, planners were able to come up with recommended improvements that can be implemented in the short-, medium- and long-term, Chabak said.

Short-term improvements, he said, could be implemented within a year or two of when the study is finalized and should come at lower costs.

Those short-term improvements may include painting road surfaces with large numbers that broadcast speed limits to motorists, choosing sites for mid-block crosswalks and even reducing speed limits on some area roadways, Chabak said.

When talking about speed reduction, Chabak specifically mentioned Route 15 northbound heading into Camp Hill, where he said motorists can travel in excess of 60 mph.

“I think there are some opportunities there for some speed transition measurements,” he said, also highlighting plans to improve the visibility of pedestrian walkways and tunnels. Improved crosswalks also were among recommendations for the Harrisburg area.

Another suggestion for Camp Hill focused on the section of Cumberland Boulevard between West Shore Country Club and Holy Spirit Hospital. Along that stretch, numerous residential streets intersect with the highway.

Chabak said the study has looked at restricting those access points, possibly turning some of them into right-in-right-out intersections and possibly closing some of them off all together.

Long-term improvements, which come with a 3-to-6 year timeline, could prove more costly and likely will require placement on the state’s Transportation Improvement Plan, Chabak said.

Among those larger projects was a plan for where State Street meets North Seventh Street. There, State Street forks off in two directions forming an awkward grassy triangle in the middle of the intersection.

“Right now it lends itself really nicely to a roundabout,” Chabak said, suggesting that a traffic circle could be built at the intersection, though he did not provide too many specific details.

The term roundabout also was used by Chabak when discussing the intersection of State and North 13 streets, but it was not immediately clear if a traffic circle is planned for that area. Chabak did not return voicemail messages about the intersection left for him Friday afternoon.

Also at the meeting, there was talk from Chabak about reducing the number of drivable lanes on roads like Forster and State streets to make them more consistent with other local roadways, especially moving into the largely residential Penbrook Borough.

That all is in addition to planned improvements to sidewalks, medians and other pedestrian pathways throughout the entire corridor, he said.

Chabak spoke after the meeting Friday, saying that the entire project ultimately will cost millions of dollars. The final written study, he said, will provide information about funding sources and will list which of the municipal stakeholders are responsible for each of the suggested improvements.

While Chabak admitted that no large public community meetings were held as part of the study process, he called the involvement of municipal stakeholders “extensive.” He also said that ongoing efforts like Harrisburg’s Vision Zero and Camp Hill’s Walk-Bike Study were taken into consideration.

On Friday, County Planning Director Kirk Stoner asked about the plan’s reception with municipal leaders, and Chabak said it has been largely — but not always — positive.

“Some have some reservations to be honest with you,” he said. “Sometimes everybody hates change, but change can be a very good thing.”

The study’s price tag came in at just under $100,000, Chabak said. That cost, he said, will be covered by the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, which is made up of officials from Cumberland, Dauphin and Perry counties.

Chabak said he hopes to finalize the study’s written results by the end of the month and to present them to Tri-County Regional Planning officials.

He said he hopes that some of the short-term projects will begin as early as spring or summer.

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